Hare Krishna

[Kayenneh]

Where was I before I was born? What will happen after I die? Why did I take the birth I took? Why this gender, this race, this mother and father? Sometimes I want things that I can't have - why? Why do I have to get old and die?

Can biology or physics, or any other scientific discipline, answer these questions? And if so, is there evidence to support the answers?

'You' simply weren't. 'You' had no say in what gender you took or what race. It was your parent's haploid cells that met, merged and got to evolve into 'you' with all your potentials. DNA is very peculiar that way, you might for instance have a gene that says you will with 90% certainty have an heart attack by the time you turn 50, yet you never get it. So that proves that though our blueprint deals us certain cards in the beginning, something else forms our lives too. Culture, family and environment have a huge impact on the way we become. Why it is so hard to pinpoint what makes a person tick, so to speak, is that there are too many variables to count, but every encounter, every protein your body makes, every decision you took, made you 'you'. All you are, is the sum of your parts. Your DNA and the environment you were brought up in.

If there is indeed something beyond that (I imagine you're thinking about a soul?) I would be highly surprised. Human anatomy is another favorite subject of mine, and all data we have today proves that everything in the body is either coded by our DNA or then it's an infection of some kind. Neuroscience is terribly fascinating and there is still lots to be discovered in the field, but I seriously think that nothing will ever prove that we carry around an entity that is part of us,l yet aren't, and above all is immortal and yet can be affected by the things we do while we're living.

I can give you a certain answer to what will happen to 'you' when you die. If I am correct in my statement that all one sees is what humans are, you cease to exist. Your body will eventually break down and in a sense live on in the world, because your atoms and energy can't disappear. But as I said, we already do this on a daily basis, the energy and small building blocks we carry are recycled every day. If there is an afterlife (and for such a place to exist there is a need for something to live on after the body is gone), we have as many speculations as there are people. Everyone is allowed to have their fantasies about it, but no one gets the right to say that 'this is it!'. All I know is that the body breaks down and consciousness is lost. That is a fact about death, the rest is speculation.

Now, I'm not pleased either to know with certainty that I'll die and that it can happen any day. But I have come to terms with it. Unfortunately our success as a species and the whole gist of evolution is for the old generations to give room to the new, improved generation. The most unsatisfying answer to your question is, if there is a reason behind it all, we don't know. Again, one can make all the speculations one wants, but the truth is that all generations before us died and so will we.

As for the things you want to have, but can't, is it too personal to ask what do you want? One thing I learned after I quit my faith was that life isn't fair, no one 'up there' is looking out for me. And what a wonderful thought it is. If life was fair, we would not only deserve the good that happened to us, we would also deserve all the bad things. Some wishes aren't realistic ('I wish to live forever!') and others can't simply become true ('I want to win the jackpot in the lottery every week!'), so what we wish for should be thought trough with great care. But I though most people learned as children that you can't have all you want, because then everyone would be entitled to the same and how would the resources ever be enough? Instead it is good to learn how to put things into perspective and be satisfied with what you've got and work towards bettering the things you can't stand living with.

At the same time, you're dealing with medical powders... not an explanation for reality. Not a grand explanation for how things work and why things are how they are. Not knocking what you're into - but you might want to agree, you're working on a totally different set of questions and answers. So while I might want to consult your knowledge if I have a medical problem, why should I consult you on issues about the basis of existence? Have you done any lab experiments to test something about that?

I understand your point, though. You're telling me how science works, because you want science when talking about things.

I understand your point too, I just wanted to be frank and say "this is what I do", so that I don't either claim to have more knowledge than I do. The thing is however, chemistry is like Legos. It doesn't matter if we're talking medicinal chemistry, cells, inorganic or organic chemistry, we only have a certain set of building blocks that we can play with. Do you agree with me that all materia is made from atoms, ions and molecules? If so, everything we see and can observe is made of the same stuff, forged in stars a long time ago. Down on molecular level is a world so different from the one we observe with the naked eye, but as we pan out, we can see that those minuscule movements between the particles can be seen on our level too. Let's continue with my example with powders and take two we all probably know quite well, table sugar and starch. We can see the individual crystals in the sugar, we can observe that they are quite smooth and the crystals will not lock together mechanically and thus it flows quite smoothly when poured. Starch on the other hand have a lot of molecular forces that pull the particles together, making it a very hard powder to pour and it forms clumps easily.

What I want to illustrate with this, that the human has a lot more complex molecules in it's body and if something so simple as powders are affected by the smallest particles in it, why shouldn't the same apply to us? We consist of complex molecules, thus the larger picture is also more complex than that of sugar. I am convinced that there is no magical power behind our being, but in understanding the small parts of the human body, we can better understand ourselves as a whole being.